Monthly Archives: January 2009

Poetry requires living a real life. This means daily interaction with the real world with its real requirements, and its real people with their real demands. It is poetry, which becomes a kind of hermitage, a walled-off garden, in which … Continue reading →

Poetry. I, too, dislike it, Marianne Moore says. But one would have to be a fool to take her seriously. Her stance, in the poem, is of course 1) rhetorical and 2) ironic. A modernist must, if she wants to … Continue reading →

I’m participating in a writing group, whose aim is to study the works of Thomas Merton. We will meet every other Tuesday, for about three months or so, to discuss original essays inspired by the writings of the Trappist monk and poet. I was … Continue reading →

As much as I dislike giving them, readings are a necessary part of poetry. A poem is meant to be heard and, further, meant to be heard by an audience. Plus, they are, readings are convenient – is that the … Continue reading →

At the end of Rilke’s poem on the busted up bust of Apollo, he concludes: You must change your life. The idea is that, after looking at this vital work of art, one that retains all its power despite or even … Continue reading →